Originally Posted by
rsteinmetz70112
I think the scare stories of IRROPS are somewhat over blown. The ULCCs have about the same cancellation rates as every other airline and in some cases have actually bought their passengers tickets on other airlines. Spirit has significantly improved their operational reliability. Frontier has generally been pretty reliable after some rocky months after their purchase by Indigo. Allegiant I have no experience with.
In my case I take the chance and if necessary will book a walk up fare on another airline to get home, but I've never had to. I could probably book that replacement using credit card points of FF miles, but in any event I'm positive I'm so far ahead that I will still be ahead if it ever happens.
"Significantly improved their operational reliability" is actually the crux of the problem: It takes a while before you bounce back from a reputation of having problems (just ask Amtrak how long it takes for ridership to rebound after a Class I has an OTP meltdown) and Spirit has begun grasping that...but for the average traveler, a few horror stories goes a long way towards making saving $10 not seem worth the risk.